Monday, June 28, 2004

Yeah, right

BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 28 - In a surprise, secret ceremony that was hastily convened to decrease the chances of more violence, United States officials today handed over sovereignty to Iraqi leaders, formally ending the American occupation two days earlier than scheduled.

independence: freedom from outside interference and the right to self-government;

independent state: a politically independent state.

I was going to make this post mostly a rant about the servility of the New York Times, but it seems that even they have developed a conscience in the last hour. When I first read this article an hour ago, there were no quotation marks around "full sovereignty" in the following section:

Although Mr. Allawi's government will have "full sovereignty," according to a United Nations Security Council resolution earlier this month, there will be limits.

The new Iraqi government, consisting of many wealthy exiles who spent years away from Iraq, is barred from making long-term policy decisions and will not control the 160,000 foreign troops remaining in the country. The government has the right to ask them to leave - but has made clear it has no intention of doing so. The government also cannot reverse any of the laws passed by American administrators during the occupation.

So at least the Times recognized the ridiculousness of the claim that Iraq has "full sovereignty." At least there's still CNN to restore my lack of faith in our media:

Members of Iraq's interim government took an oath of office Monday just hours after the United States returned the nation's sovereignty.

No quotes there! In any case, I think this picture adequately defines the new meaning of sovereignty:

That's right! Sovereignty is a blue portfolio! Here's the caption for that photo from the NY Times:

L. Paul Bremer, right, the outgoing U.S. ambassador, handed over sovereignty to Midhat Mahmoud, left, the head of the Iraqi Supreme Court, as Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, center, and other government officials, watched.

It's going great, so far:

Already today security forces, responding to today's announcement, were locking down sections of the capital. Several hotels refused to let guests go in or out, thousands of police stepped into the streets and American fighter jets cut arcs in the sky over Baghdad. Both American and Iraqi officials said they were expecting the handover to be marred by significant terrorist attacks.